interesting-people message

Subject: Intuit's "Bait & Switch" (was Re: [IP] Re: The death of non-regulated ISPs?)

From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
To: ip@v2.listbox.com
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:19:40 -0500



Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: February 14, 2007 10:17:16 AM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: lauren@vortex.com

Subject: Intuit's "Bait & Switch" (was Re: [IP] Re: The death of non-regulated ISPs?)



Dave and Dave,

Don't get me started on what it takes to get an SBC ("The New AT&T")
data circuit fixed these days (e.g., a remote router rebooted).
Reaching the level 1 support people ("far far away") is easy day and
night.  The trick is to talk your way past them to the next level,
where actual corrections can usually be quickly made.  Unfortunately,
at level 1, no matter how precisely you can describe the problem (and
required fix) their diagnostic ability is usually pretty much limited
to "power cycle your modem -- you are running Windows aren't you?"

But as Arlo said in "Alice's Restaurant" -- that's not what I came
to tell you about.

Intuit is going through their usual forced obsolescence cycle for
Quicken, and just started notifying users that as of April's end
they'll be cut off from their banks if they don't upgrade to the new
version.  Intuit even provides a handy link to click for upgrade
discount information.

If you go to the "upgrade discount" page and investigate further,
you'll find that the price listed for an upgrade to the current
version of Quicken Basic is *identical* to that for a new user
install (that is, the standard retail box price).

Given that this promised discount was zero, I decided to see what
Intuit customer service had to say about this.  I tried both the
online chat and the live phone support.  Both were answered without
delay, apparently in each case by someone -- you guessed it --
"far far away."

I spent a good hour-plus with these support people, who were polite,
apologetic, and utterly useless.  Apparently I misunderstood the
meaning of the word "discount" -- an upgrade discount turns out
not to exist for Quicken Basic -- only for more elaborate versions or
versions bundled with other software: "Would you like to order these?"

Seems like bait and switch, clean and simple.  If you suggest this
to the support folks, they'll politely agree, then tell you that
there's nothing to be done, no escalation possible, have a nice day.
Oh well.

Of course, the Intuit system merrily e-mailed me a customer response
survey form the next morning.  How sweet ...

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Founder, CIFIP
   - California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com


 - - -



Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net>
Date: February 13, 2007 10:13:07 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com, Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@centergate.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] The death of non-regulated ISPs?
Reply-To: dcrocker@bbiw.net

Earthlink seemed to be one of the more professional, stable ISPs,
despite their occasional market missteps. And when they reach the
point that they can survive by creating an impervious support
barrier that takes care of run-of-the-mill problems, but ignores
unusual problems to the point that THEY have spent 14 hours of toll-
free time...



Rodney (and Dave and IP...)

The problem is not specific to ISPs.  It has become the common
experience for most companies' customer service model.  For some
years, I've characterized this as as "Customer service personnel are
willing to spend any amount of time explaining why they cannot fix
the problem."  Rodney has merely gone to particular extremes to
demonstrate this reality.

Front-line support -- Level 1, if it's a real human that you get, and
Level 0, if it's an automated response system by phone or email or
the web -- is entirely defined by time per call.  By design, as you
imply in your note, their scope is limited to cover only the most
common problems.

So the issue is not with that part of the service.

The problem is the way escalations are handled.

What the Internet has enabled, is a new diversion technique:  email
and the web.  It justifies reducing human customer support staff and
for returning no responses.

Ultimately, the problem is that consumers do not generally make
purchases based on evaluations of customer service quality.  (The San
Jose Mercury News had a story today about American Airlines holding
its passengers captive for 8 hours and charging them for sandwhiches.
Unfortunately the silliness of the airlines' service model is
entirely justified by the public's unwillingness to demand better
treatment.)

Yes, there are times when regulation makes sense:  When consumers do
not have a reasonable choice available, at the time of purchase, or
when the vendor can assert undue control after the purchase, such as
by physically holding passengers captive.

Cingular has a better network, but they have aggressively bad
customer service.  T-mobile's network isn't as good, but their
service is recognized as quite good.

Which is the market leader?  Why?

d/


--

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net


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